File Name
This is Smail (RELEASE-3_2) by the Smail development group.
INTRODUCTION
This release of Smail is based entirely on Smail-3.1 by Ronald S. Karr
and Landon Curt Noll. The majority of sources under this directory are
copyright by the authors, whereas code under the ./pd/ subdirectory is
available in the public domain. Code in the ./contrib/ directory is
owned by the contributing authors, who should be consulted if you have
any questions about distribution or usage restrictions.
See the file COPYING for information on copying restrictions that apply
to all files in the release other than files in the contrib and pd
directories.
See the file INSTALL for information on how to configure and install the
Smail software. PLEASE CHECK ALL THE SECTIONS OF THIS FILE. In
particular, some later sections describe system and environment specific
configuration details that you should be aware of, if they apply to your
situation.
Users of Smail-3.1 releases should review the CHANGES file, to see what
has changed or to see if some previously encountered problems have been
fixed. You *will* have to re-write your conf/EDITME files.
OBTAINING NEW VERSIONS OF SMAIL
The official distribution can be obtained from ftp.uu.net with FTP using
the following URL:
ftp://ftp.uu.net/networking/mail/smail/
CHANGES TO SMAIL DEVELOPMENT PROCESS
In June 1994, Ronald S Karr, who had almost single handedly run the
Smail-3 development up to that time, decided that he was unable to keep
up with the work required to keep smail development going. An ad-hoc
development team was subsequently set up, initially with the task of
getting a smail 3.1.29 release built which fixes the security problems
found in smail 3.1.28, and to continue future Smail-3 development. It
was also intended that a group will work on development of further fixes
and changes for Smail-3 and a hopeful re-write as Smail-TNG.
Since the release of smail 3.1.29, Nigel Metheringham was responsible
for a great deal of work in creating many development releases, and
incorporating numerous changes and fixes from the ad-hoc team.
With the release of Smail-3.2, a new group is being formed, made up of
past participants and new, who will all have direct access to the
official Smail-3 sources repository. Please see the section below
regarding bugs and patches for further information.
These development groups are intended to be small enough to work
quickly, and large enough that the work can be spread out to prevent
single person overload. If you are interested in joining the groups
then please contact the bugs address given below. We are always
interested in receiving bug fixes and/or new features patches whether or
not you are a member of the development group -- again see below for how
to do this.
KNOWN PROBLEMS IN SMAIL RELEASE-3_2
There are a small number of things that are known to cause problems, but
which have not been addressed in the current release. Here is a summary
of the serious problems:
* Spill-over spool directories don't always work correctly, so don't
use them. A spill-over directory is a second directory listed in
the spool_dirs configuration variable.
* Smail does not always limit the size of mail messages. There is a
configuration parameter for this, but it is currently ignored
in all cases except for ESMTP configurations, where the SIZE option
is specified to the remote system with the maximum accepted message
size.
Please consult the ToDo file for a list of the known minor problems.
In addition, there are some features that Smail really should have, and
that are intended for a future release. Some of these are:
* The ability to deliver multiple messages per connection to a
destination host. The proposed solution for this also involves a
separate Smail daemon for delivery, similar to the organization of
the Zmailer program by Rayan Zachariassen of UUNET Canada and
formerly of the University of Toronto. Dan Bernstein's qmail; as
well as the AT&T Research UNIX, SysVr4 native, and Plan 9 mailer,
sometimes known as UPAS; also have similar designs.
* Smaller mail queuer programs (i.e., rmail, rsmtp), that do not have
all of Smail linked into them. This would make smail more palatable
on smaller systems.
Please consult the PROJECTS file for a list of other important things.
SUPPORT FOR JANET MAIL
Smail now contains limited support for JANET mail (the reverse-order
domain system used in the United Kingdom). Complete support is
available from Philip Hazel <ph10@cus.cam.ac.uk>. The smail3
distribution provides only those hooks that must be in the smail
binary itself. Send mail to Philip for more information. If you
are not in the UK, please ignore this paragraph: you don't want to
know.
FUTURE SMAIL RELEASES
If anybody would like to take on the large task of making Smail a
leaner, cleaner, and more adaptable program, please let us know. If
nobody ever comes forward, then we will probably have to consider the
full rewrite dead, and continue hacking on the current sources.
I am interested in volunteers for large, and medium-sized tasks. If you
are interested, please send us e-mail.
The next major release of of Smail (if there is one! ;-) will have been
converted to use the GNU Autoconf (and Automake) utilities for system
configuration.
Smail will no doubt be popularly known as Smail-3 for a long time to
come. However it is expected that Smail will follow the Berkeley CSRG
version numbering scheme for future releases. We will increment the
third number (3.7, 3.7.1, 3.7.2, etc) whenever we generate a release of
bug fixes (what might traditionally be also known as a "patch" release),
and increment the second number, or the minor release number, (3.7, 3.8)
whenever we add any new features or make other user-visible changes, and
lastly we'll increment the first number, or the major release number,
(3.9, 4.1) whenever we make major or architectural changes. We'll also
throw in a smattering of GNU-isms too -- the alpha- and beta-test
releases of upcoming proper releases will have a ".80" or ".90"
(respectively) appended to the current release number (3.7.1.80,
3.7.1.81, 3.7.1.90, 3.7.2; or 4.1.80, 4.1.81, 4.1.82, 4.1.90, 4.1.91,
4.2). You'll note this effectively caps the maximum patch level, or
minor release number, ceiling at ".79", and limits the number of alpha
releases to 10. Unfortunately it does not limit the number of beta
releases! ;-)
GENERAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The Smail-3.2 release now exists, thanks to the efforts of Chip
Salzenberg, Nigel Metheringham, Greg A. Woods, and a cast of others.
These original Smail-3.1 acknowledgments from Ronald S. Karr:
Some smail3 users go back quite a ways and have provided
invaluable help, patches, and comments over the years. Here's a
few that I can remember: Andy Beals, Mark H. Coburn, Karl
Denninger, Mark Hartman, Shane McCaran, Tim Mitchell, Gordon
Moffett, Lyndon Nerenberg, Dave Rand, Andy Rundquist, Chip
Salzenberg, Johan Vromans, Lauren Weinstein, Syd Weinstein, Bill
Wisner, and Jon Zeeff.
A special thanks to Landon Curt Noll <chongo@toad.com> who
started me on the road of post-college life and caused me to
write smail in the process. He also helped design and implement
the first several versions. Without him, smail3.1 certainly
would never have been written.
A special thanks also to Larry Auton, who wrote smail2.5.
Without him, Smail3.1 would have, at the very least, been called
something else. He also provided valuable encouragement and
comment during the earlier phases of smail design and
development.
BUGS, COMMENTS, AND PATCH SUBMISSION
Please generate and send bug reports and/or fixes by using the smailbug
utility (a customised version of GNATS send-pr) included with Smail.
There are now two discussion lists started by Lyndon Nerenberg
<lyndon@cs.athabascau.ca> and now maintained by Daryl Campbell
<daryl@cs.athabascau.ca>: smail3-users and smail3-wizards.
To subscribe to either of these lists send mail to either:
smail3-users-request@cs.athabascau.ca
and/or to:
smail3-wizards-request@cs.athabascau.ca
I do not have any connection with this list, other than the fact that I
maintain the software that it discusses. So, please don't send list
change requests to me.
Please send questions, comments, or anything else you have to say either
to me, or to the discussion groups.
I vastly prefer receiving bug fixes and enhancements that are clearly
differentiated. I don't always know what to do with large patches that
contain many bugs and enhances folded into the same context diffs.
Please try and keep it to one fix or enhancement per patch. If your
change modifies the external interface of smail -- i.e. more config
options, command-line switches, new programs, etc., then please also
include patches for the manual pages and documentation. Patches should
ideally be in context or unidiff format, and should have "Index:" lines
to specify the file to be patched. Finally, *please* include ChangeLog
style entries to describe your changes. Incomplete patches will greatly
lower their priority for consideration.
[ Again, generating patches with your local changes is quite easy if you
employ CVS as a source control tool. ]
If you are a past Smail-3 maintainer, and/or you've recently supplied a
number of good patches, and you are willing to volunteer some time to
help with the future maintenance of Smail-3, your application can be
considered for membership in the Smail-3 developers group. This
membership will allow you access to the master CVS source repository and
our GNATS bugs database. Please see the charter for the development
group in the file ./Smail3-devel.
--
Greg A. Woods
+1 416 443-9665 VE3TCP robohack!woods
Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>; Secrets of the Weird <woods@weird.com>